1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an image capturing apparatus and an image processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are conventionally known omnidirectional image capturing apparatuses that create a panoramic image by capturing omnidirectional images using a plurality of image capturing devices (CMOS sensors or the like) and combining plurality of data sets acquired by the image capturing.
However, in such a conventional omnidirectional image capturing apparatus, a plurality of image processing circuits respectively associated with the image capturing devices perform black level correction, color interpolation, correction of dropout pixels, and other necessary image processing on the plurality of pieces of image data acquired using the plurality of image capturing devices. Consequently, as the number of the image capturing devices increases, an amount of hardware for image processing increases, leading to a problem of an increase in cost. Moreover, because the plurality of pieces of image data are handled separately, there is a problem of complicated data handling.
For instance, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-033810 discloses a multi-sensor panoramic network camera that includes a plurality of image sensors (image capturing devices), a plurality of image processors (image processing circuits), an image postprocessor, and a network interface, in which the image processing circuits and the image sensors are equal in number.
Therefore, there is a need, concerning an image capturing apparatus such as an omnidirectional image capturing apparatus that uses a plurality of image capturing devices, to solve the problem of an increase in cost due to an increase in an amount of hardware for image processing resulting from an increase in the number of the image capturing devices and the problem of complicated data handling incident to handing plurality of pieces of image data separately, and to increase reliability.